0
The system's history goes back to the arrival of some British in Karachi at the end of the eighteenth century. They had established a factory at the present SITE location, but it was closed down following a disagreement with the Meers. Subsequently, British troops occupied Karachi in 1839 and it served as landing port for their troops during the First Afghan War. The province of Sindh was then conquered by Charles James Napier in 1843.
Napier established a water supply system for the extended city of Karachi with wells at Damloti Malir and a reservoir at the COD hill. The old Karachi town was then confined by a boundary wall with two gates at Kharadar (facing the sea) and Mithadar (facing the Lyari River). It was mainly inhabited by fisher folk and small traders.
Work on Karachi Port development was undertaken between 1863 and 1895 and the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) was established in 1887. As a result, many British traders and several banks started their business in Karachi.
British soldiers arriving from Europe were kept in quarantine at Karachi. They were provided with a wet system of sanitation as was in vogue in England at that time. In that system, the sewage water flows owing to gravity and has to be pumped out for disposal. But at that time there were no electricity or diesel pumps and operating steam engines throughout the city would have proved cumbersome.
For that reason, engineers devised a unique system of power transmission. Steam engines at the Nishter Road site operated air compressors and the compressed air was transmitted to various pumping stations via underground steel pipes. The underground 'ejector pumps' used for lifting the sewage water comprised a chamber with inlets for the compressed air and the sewage water. The inlets were automatically activated by valves in sequence. On filling the chamber with sewage water, the compressed air entered the chamber from top and ejected the water to rising main. Then, the cycle was repeated.
Work on the Karachi Municipal Drainage system was done in two phases. The project was inaugurated by Lord Harris, governor of Bombay, in December 1889, and it was arranged so that the required ejector pumps were manufactured by Consolidated Pneumatic Tools Co. Ltd. of London.
Twenty ejector pumps were installed at various localities in Karachi to drain into two disposal sites. Sewage water from the rising mains fed by the Kharadar, Mithadar, Lyari, Chuna Bhatti, and other ejector pumps was collected at Jamila Street, from where it was pumped by steam engines to the sewage farm now known as Gutter Baghicha near SITE. The ejectors at Saddar and adjoining areas directly discharged the sewage to a goth, now present-day Mehmoodabad. No untreated water was directed into the sea. In fact, Karachi even had separate storm water drains.
Proper sewage water treatment plants (TP) of 20 MGD were installed in 1959. The TP1 at SITE was later upgraded to 51 MGD and TP2 at Mehmoodabad to 46 MGD. Both the stations were provided with five electric generators driven by 1,500 HP gas engines. The gas could not be produced in the required quantity due to poor quality of the sewage.
In 1981, the Water and Sewage Board was formed and within two years the degraded ejector pump system was completely replaced by a modern sewerage system. The problem is, this modern sewerage system has not been maintained or expanded and old treatment plants have become obsolete. The TP-3 (54 MGD) built at Mauripur in 1997 is treating only 40 MGD; therefore, most of the sewage water remains untreated and is drained into the sea.
Given that Karachi's original sewage disposal system helped preserve the environment while allowing the city to grow in a modern, hygienic way, it is tragic that we are not preserving the remains of the unique ejector pump system founded by the British.
Rahat Ali Khan, former chief engineer KMC, provided information for this article.
